Mortaine’s Blog

I had a dream about vampires last night. Not the cute, sexy vampires from Buffy, but the really awful, powerful, Evil vampires who turn you just by killing you, and who almost never feed without killing.

I dreamt at first that I was a man (I think) finding out there were such things. Then trying to get away with his sister (at that point I think I was myself and the man was John, so we were married, not siblings). Later, the woman was turned into a vampire, but the man hadn’t– he was about the only mortal left in a group of about 20-30 people, including kids. He was organizing several people to resist the extremely blood-thirsty vamps, but ultimately the hunger was pretty strong for them all.

My main character/protagonist is a male. My main character is a plumber. An archetype present in my story is Shepard. A key object or symbol in my story is a magnifying glass. My story will be set in a funeral home. My story is about greed.

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Another direction to take this:

My protagonist is a plumber who comes from a mafia family. At a recent family “reunion,” (at a funeral home. . . .) he runs into the typical family conflicts as well as some not-so-typical problems arising from not going into the family business.

My protagonist is a urologist (i.e. plumber) attending the funeral of a patient who died of complications after a vasectomy. The patient’s family is threatening a lawsuit.

The protagonist is a plumber who is fixing the pipes at a funeral parlor late one night (after the funeral director has gone home) when the living dead come to life. Knowing almost nothing of the arcane lore, the plumber uses everything at his disposal to defeat the undead, but is only successful in locking them into the visitation room. He uses a magnifying glass (used in making up dead bodies) to burn a hole through the chamber door, through which he observes the zombies as they eat the carcass of poor Mrs. McArly, the retired school librarian. The cosmetician (also working late, and providing the needed magnifying glass) is a love interest; her father was a sheepherder from the Old Country and told her many tales of the terrible walking dead, and how to defeat them. Zombies, she explains, pretty much have to be chopped up or burned. They pour formaldehyde (find the most flammable embalming fluid possible for this detail) all over the funeral home and set fire to the building, letting the zombies burn to their eternal rest. Of course, the evil funeral director must get away. . . . . .

My main character/protagonist is a male. My main character is a plumber. An archetype present in my story is Shepard. A key object or symbol in my story is a magnifying glass. My story will be set in a funeral home. My story is about greed.
[generated at Story Starter].

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Something missing in the started idea is the conflict, so I better come up with that on my own, I suppose. I’m aiming for 2000-4000 words by Sunday at 3, with Everything Else right now. What is that– 8-20 pages?

Let’s see. . . .

My protagonist is a plumber named Franklin Wilson– he does not permit people to call him “Frank.” He frequently works for the Rich and Powerful in the small, Northern California town where he has been a resident his entire life (33 years).

Franklin’s Aunt Margaret expired two days ago on Monday night. The wake is tonight, with the funeral being tomorrow. Aunt Maggie was Irish, and all of her Irish cousins and siblings are coming for the wake. However, her husband was good old Protestant American stock, and all of his relatives are coming as well. Uncle Marty was a kind man, and a good man who used his considerable wealth to help people in his community but he died last year, leaving the bulk of his fortune to Aunt Maggie. From all accounts, Maggie spent only a fraction of his savings, living as frugally after he died as she had when he was alive.

At the wake, Franklin encounters the Irish cousins, whom he genuinely likes, and Uncle Marty’s kin, who are upright and fair people, even if they are a bit judgemental. He is caught between these two factions because Aunt Maggie has no children of her own, and has very likely left her entire fortune to Franklin. The plumber. Uncle Marty’s family is understandably upset by this, as they would prefer to have the money stay within their side of the family, but are less likely to challenge the decision if Franklin can demonstrate that he fits in with their type of people. Because of his business contacts, Franklin has a number of wealthy and influential people who have come to the service, but their interest is as one would expect for a long-time reliable contractor having family difficulties, not someone they perceive as a peer.

Franklin, meanwhile, would much rather spend the entire evening on the front lawn drinking with Maggie’s second cousin Seamus, and toasting to her memory. The politicizing of his family is of little concern, and even less consequence to him.